The Great Cloudy vs. Limpid Taste-Off

I’ve been on this issue for years as well, initially my experience came simply from noticing that an “all-in” glass of bottle-conditioned beer tasted inferior to one decanted carefully. The hop and malt character can be blurred by too much yeasty stuff in the glass. Then I noticed, or thought I did, the same thing for cloudy pints. Whether the same proportion of yeast and protein gets in both forms, I have no idea, but it has been my impression “on the ground” that fined pints are better – nothing to do with “learned cultural prejudices”.

Now in these discussions, people never do the obvious thing. Just do blind taste tests! Boak can do it tonight with one of the beers in their bunker and serve it to Bailey in the same glass, who noses and drinks with eyes closed. So easy to do. (Of course you can do it vice versa well, but I think Bailey will rather object :)). And it can be done in a pub too, I mean with cask beer, although more preparation is needed.

The great cloudy vs. limpid taste-off, come on guys, just do it and report well and truly. I am not against all the theorizing in print and have contributed to it not a little myself, but time to do some work in the field. It may well, as some have projected, depend on particular brand and if so fair enough.